My Daughter the Drama Queen

The high school I used to teach at has a terrific fine arts program. The kids involved with choir, orchestra, choraliers, drama, etc. are amazing. If these performances weren't set in a high school auditorium you would have little clue that you were watching high school KIDS perform. This weekend they performed Disney's Beauty and the Beast so I decided to take my two older kids. My daughter, who is a lover of all things Princess related, was beyond excited at the prospect and my son, who likes "The Beast" was eager to see him in person.

The performance was incredible so I was glad I had the opportunity to see it. However, even better was witnessing the utter joy and amazement on my daughter's face. When the orchestra began playing the opening notes to the play, which are the same from the Disney movie, she looked over at me in awe. She was on the edge of her seat the entire performance. The kid who played Gaston was a stud, but he was despised by my children...due to the character he played, not due to his performance. He was a bit too real for my kids. He did a terrific job and at the end when each character came out to receive his/her applause my daughter refused to clap for him because she said he was mean and tried to hurt the Beast. The girl who played Belle also did a great job. She was very pretty and had a great stage presence and my daughter instantly fell in love with her.

One of the best parts was at the end all the performers lined up in the lobby to meet the audience. My daughter was enthralled with Belle and wanted her photo taken. My daughter wore her Belle gown to the play and received quite a bit of attention for her ensemble. When the photographer for the school wanted to take her picture with Gaston for their drama department my daughter refused saying he was too mean. She was more than thrilled, however, to pose with Belle and the Beast.

She spent the rest of that night and all of today talking about all of her favorite parts, the parts that scared her, the similarities and differences between the movie and the play, and all sorts of different impression she came away with. Knowing how well she enjoyed it makes me want to take her to the theatre be it high school or otherwise. After hearing about how much my daughter enjoyed it my father decided to take her and a couple of her cousins to a Broadway production of Les Miserables in June. She is stoked!

So, all in all we had a pretty good weekend. How was yours?